Recent discoveries of sexually transmitted diseases, particularly AIDS and chlamydia, and the recent rise in the incidence of other venereal diseases, has raised public consciousness of the necessity of vigilance in taking health protective measures. At the same time, unmarried people wish to live as close to the social life they were used to prior to the recent upsurge in sexual diseases.
Women who wish to avoid pregnancy have used such self-armed measures as birth control pills and diaphragms, and, while such preventive means are effective against pregnancy, they are substantially ineffective against venereal diseases, including AIDS.
One of the proven ways to protect the health of both males and females from sexually transmitted disease is the use of prophylactic condoms by men during sexual intercourse. Women, therefore, have become more dependent upon the man to protect both of them against the transmission of disease by means of the use of the standard condom during sexual intercourse.
A health problem exists, however, because men often fail to carry a condom with them when they socialize, for example, at parties. Such social gatherings are important to young, unmarried people, but because of the prevalence of AIDS in particular, anxiety is created to the extent that often the idea of the occurrence of any sexual contact is rejected. More important, however, is the possibility that the woman may mistakenly believe that the man is going to use a condom, while the man mistakenly believes that the woman has taken precautions against inadvertent pregnancy and that such female precaution is sufficient to protect both of them without giving sufficient thought to protecting the woman, or for that matter, himself, from passage of a disease. The fact is, however, a man may carry a venereal infection without his knowledge.